


Understood

by Nicole Crucial (moilArchitect)



Category: Hunter X Hunter, InuYasha - A Feudal Fairy Tale
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe, Crossover, Crossover Pairings, Drabble, F/M, Friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-05
Updated: 2012-02-05
Packaged: 2017-10-30 16:22:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/333685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moilArchitect/pseuds/Nicole%20Crucial
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A lifetime ago, a world ago, in a place lost to time and space (and death) in turn, she met someone she'd never thought she'd meet. Someone she'd hoped to never meet.</p><p>Sango met another survivor.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Her Goodbye

**Author's Note:**

> This drabble is based on RP interactions ("a world lost to space and time in turn,") and is sort of AU, but only enough for plausibility. Enjoy!

A lifetime ago, a world ago, in a place lost to time and space in turn, she met a boy with eyes that turned red in his fury and a bloodbathed past, riddled with spiders that tangled him in their inescapable web until he could move no more. There were weights tied to his ankles that only she could see, and a fire in his heart that only she knew the true heat of.

A lifetime ago, a world ago, in a place lost to time and space ( _and death_ ) in turn, she met someone she'd never thought she'd meet. Someone she'd hoped to never meet.

Sango met another survivor.

A survivor of a massacre born of covet and of fear; of a villain who bore the mark of the spider just as his victims bore the entanglement of his web; of a vendetta that threatened to consume all in its path; of being alone in a world where so many still had a place to belong.

Her eyes stayed always as brown as the muck of the grave she'd pulled herself out of, while his stained scarlet at the touch of anger. She was robbed of her family's trade, and what his family was robbed of was traded. She bore the wounds of the massacre on her skin, and he, locked tightly in his heart.

But no matter how many differences she discovered over the years, she always came to the same conclusion. That the similarities between her fate and his were eerie, to say the least. And that paths parallel which defied the laws of nature to meet, would find it very hard indeed, by virtue of irony's cruelty and fate's mischief, to stay together.

His destination was not hers. And neither of their paths, no matter how obstacle-ridden or winding, would divert from that course of their destination. Of their goal.

That, too, which was parallel.

They were not born fighters, and survivors, to let go of their duties. Not for anyone. Not even for another.

A lifetime ago, a world ago, in a place lost to time and space in turn, she smiled and said goodbye, and knew he understood.


	2. His Goodbye

Their paths would not stay together long, but they still crossed. Kurapica's quest, like Sango's, brought him far and wide. Perhaps he hadn't always believed in fate; but there were times, brief and few, over the time that passed, when he thought that maybe despite all logic and reason, just _maybe,_ it did guide.

They were the times when he entered a village or a town, tracking down receiptless trails of the treasures he sought and the formless shadows of the band he pursued, and heard whispers of a girl with dark eyes and long hair and a giant, bleached bone bent into a boomerang, tied to her back.

He couldn't have counted how many times it happened, except to say that it was few. He was not always sure whether she had been there, or whether he'd just thought too much of how badly a monster-ridden city could use the services she was the only one left to provide.

But there were times when he saw her face in the crowds of a black market, here for the sake of a memory of a place lost to time and space in turn. Times when he felt a smile on his lips just before he recognized the warmth of arms flung around his shoulders and laughter that told tales of melancholy, sung songs that he was one of the few unlucky enough to understand.

These were moments lost in seas of searching, memories fondly interspersed that reminded him, sometimes when he needed it the most, that he was not alone. He was never sure how she always knew when to appear--if she even meant to do it--or if maybe she felt the same way--or if it was he who unconsciously mirrored her. It was their one mystery in the depths of all the understanding, and it was one mystery that even his analytical, inquisitive nature didn't really make an effort to press.

He remembered the last time he had seen her, however, as part of the precious little concrete. A time when she told him, with a smile that spoke of tired years, of quiet conviction, of vendetta to be quenched, that soon, the end was coming. Her destination approached.

And he knew that his was not far either, and that their destinations were not terribly far from each other in themselves.

For the sake of a lifetime ago, a world away, of a place lost to time and space in turn, he smiled and said goodbye, and knew she understood.


	3. Their Hello

There were times when they both wondered if they'd ever see each other again. There were times when they both doubted it. _Parallel,_ argued their minds, and intersecting at times, but not identical. They knew the last meeting had closed a chapter, and it seemed right to do so with someone who knew the way the chapter must close.

For both, it could've been the last chapter, and the epilogue of the story could've been the recount of a bloodbathed death, cruel and right, a death like that they might have suffered all those years ago.

But they were not survivors for nothing. They were not fighters for nothing. And they had not learned to tear the silk of the spider's web for nothing.

They met again the way they had the first time, a lifetime ago, a world away, in a place lost to time and space in turn. In a graveyard. This time, though, the graves were not ghosts that haunted a pair of survivors guilty for all the ways they failed--failed to die, failed to live, failed to achieve their own ambitions. This time the graves were made of stone, and they were proof: proof of a self-imposed mission complete. They were proof of the end of a debt, cancelled by the only ones left to pay.

They were not sure whose graveyard it was: a clan of scarlet eyes, or a tribe of demon slayers. But she knew that Naraku was dead, and that in a little hut by a river, her brother was free. And he knew that the Genei Ryodan would never again spill blood, and that the scarlet eyes of his brothers were back where they belonged.

For the sake of a lifetime ahead, a world to be conquered, and the memory of a meeting in a place lost to time and space in turn, they smiled and said hello, and they understood.


End file.
